Wednesday, 30 September 2009

Fascinating private house previously home to Russian scholar and collector Alexander Kardo Sessoeff who bought speculatively and relentlessly researched and authenticated.
His descendant Francesca Findlater, picked up on his unresolved life's work, and it inspired her to do more.
At a private view ( you can contact the link above and arrange your own ) we were priviledged to feel this amazing space, its unique character and personality.
The artist Peter Harris has responded to questions of authenticity in the Portsea place collection, including a 'Collaboration with Four Dead Artists' which is a film with Harris and a clairvoyant and the resultant works they 'asked' him to paint.
We hear that recently Jemma Redgrave and Diana Quick took part in a reading of Checkov's 'Three Sisters', I understand perfectly as I wander through the
house, with its dramatic Russian portraits, proper historic bohemian blend of love and irreverence and deep thoughtful colour.
For myself, as I was directed by a German mentor who taught me that Checkov was to be played as a comedy.
Which makes perfect sense.
The deeply seeming melancholia of the Russian states is aestheticly tortuous and knows it.
This house, shows it, in a richly bohemian, appreciative and roguely collectors eye.
Unique.
Go see it.

Thursday, 24 September 2009

Namallee's facebook mantra epitomises the soul of this impressive young style icon. Innately progressive and diverse in her work medium- she declares " I do what I do, because I have to ".

This rarified bird of the 'style icon' series is a rainbow warrior of colour, here we picture her in black and white.

Chanteuse, Magasine co-founder, official muse to the wonderful Basso and Brooke, and along with Henry Conway, Miss Bolle is firmly stitched into the Weardowney aeshetic also.

Co-founder of SuperSuper magasine with a fashion heart, she styles, she writes, does her fair share of performance art and as we are about to become more publicly aware with the release of her upcoming music recorded with Rat Scabies ( The Damned )- she sings...

I was priviledged to have been involved with Nam at the very beginning of her love affair with singing.
It was february 2005, and Weardowney's third collection.
Nam was styling as usual, and told me how she wanted to sing.
She'd hooked up with Clifford Slapper for a few lessons and declared her passion to perform. We suggested she sing at our show.

Which she did, and 5 years later I caught herrecent performance as the face of Reebok 'freestyle' trainers, where a polished yet refreshingly stillraw Nam, performed 4 tight tracks, dressed in Pam Hogg catsuit, Reebok 'freestyle' trainers, and an attitude of perfect progression.

Namallee is brave. She's brave enough to be 'work in progress' which as creatives we all should aspire to.

This lady is an original.

She beats to her own progressive drum, an original style icon for her generation.

Thursday, 3 September 2009

Hot off the press- Weardowney's getUp boutique are delighted to be amongst the first London stockists of the celebrated blogger Scott Shulman's first book- 'The Sartorilalist'.

The title taken from his blog, Scott's rise to sartorial acclaim originates from a decision to shut his high end fashion showroom shortly after 9/11, and combine his love of fashion and photography- culminating in an esteemed blog- which began at the outset of the genre's popularity, and now cited as one of Time magasine's top 100 design influencers.

The Sartorilalist blog- of which I have been a fan since being introduced to it by Imran Ahmed ( of 'business of fashion' fame* ) in 2007- depicts Shulman's unique quality of appreciation and definition in both of his loves of fashion and photography.

An attractively humble approach with both a designer and a merchandiser's eye gives a duality to Scotts work that I admire and respect.

He quite simply seems to have gone walkabout, (in a true fashion indulgenistic way) and photographed what caught his sartorial eye. The result is what Kanye West attributes as " a historian marking the feelings of this generation one photo at a time ".

In our book 'Weardowney Knit Couture' we play with the notion of 'designer or stylist?' citing Galliano as the former and Calvin Klein the latter. Shulman displays an eye for both...

In his introduction, Scott says

" We tend to think that to achieve great personal style someone must have perfect clarity about who they are and what they stand for. I politely disagree. I think conflict about who you are often leads you even greater expression."

His book, which is visually led, allows us to see style in a different light, make it ours and in a way which inspires the reader to open their eyes and look around...